After a week of intense citizen input, professional planners offered three scenarios for the fort that the Army plans to leave by 2011. All three plans urge historical preservation in and around the old stone fort and open, natural space on the opposite end near Buckroe Beach.

"We don't believe that Fort Monroe should be frozen in amber - sealed up - mothballed," said Victor Dover, a town planner with Dover, Kohl and Partners, the Coral Gables-Fla.-based firm hired to harness public input. But "how do you make the new stuff hold up to the old stuff." Dover told the crowd of about 230 people to focus on the guiding principles that dominated the comments. Promote and preserve the history. No gated communities. Keep lots of open space, including the beach. Make sure any development has strict size, location and architectural limits.

The major variable is how much development will be allowed in the middle section of the 570-acre post. The economics of the maintaining the base are going to be part of the mix, according to Brian DeProfio, the city's point man on Monroe, because upkeep costs about $15 million a year,.

"That's going to be part of the equation - paying for the historic preservation," said DeProfio, who is leaving for a state job next week. "That costs money, and the money has to come from somewhere."

Despite intense scrutiny on the emerging plans, there's still a murky picture for who will eventually take over the post. That's because about half of the land belongs to the federal government and the rest reverts to the state when the Army leaves.

"I don't know what the state is going to do," said state Del. Tom Gear, R-Hampton, who sits on the steering committee. "All the feedback that I'm getting is that people don't want it turned over to the city of Hampton."

Ken Spence was one of more than 500 people who stopped in and offered suggestions during the week, and he believes that the planners are on track. But the Hampton resident is skeptical about the ultimate design for the post. "I want some input down the line," Spence said. "It's like proofreading something before it's done."

The city is planning an update and public input session in the fall, and there will have to be public hearings before the local panel guiding the transition and the Hampton City Council approve any plan.

"We certainly don't want to go underground," DeProfio said.

All three plans are going to be further refined, run past a steering committee and then turned over to the Army Corps of Engineers by early November.

That's when experts will start studying the amount of munitions on the base and the environmental impact of the transition among other issues. "This is enough to give them the direction that they need," said Bob Harper, who chairs the panel the Department of Defense picked to oversee the fort's transition. "We're moving forward."

Federal prosecutors are accusing a Hampton man of spearheading a local drug distribution conspiracy in which a customer who thought he had bought heroin died after unwittingly injecting a more potent alternative into his veins.